“Branding Theory, Design and Identity” Course Teaching Experience for
Modern IT Specialists
Viktoriia V. Bolotina
1 a
, Tetiana A. Vakaliuk
1,2,3,4 b
, Olha R. Harbych-Moshora
5 c
and
Valerii V. Kontsedailo
6 d
1
Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University, 103 Chudnivska Str., Zhytomyr, 10005, Ukraine
2
Institute for Digitalisation of Education of the NAES of Ukraine, 9 M. Berlynskoho Str., Kyiv, 04060, Ukraine
3
Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University, 54 Gagarin Ave., Kryvyi Rih, 50086, Ukraine
4
Academy of Cognitive and Natural Sciences, 54 Gagarin Ave., Kryvyi Rih, 50086, Ukraine
5
Drohobych Ivan Franko State Pedagogical University, Street Ivan Franko, 24, Drohobych, 82100, Ukraine
6
Inner Circle, Nieuwendijk 40, 1012 MB Amsterdam, Netherlands
Keywords:
Branding Theory, Design, Identity, IT Specialist, Laboratory Work, Brand Book, Brand Formation, Survey,
Methodology, Creative Approach, Graphic Editors.
Abstract:
This article contains a description of the author’s methodology for teaching the course “Branding Theory,
Design, and Identity”. The article provides a list of topics studied by students. The results of students’ work,
their achievements, and analysis of the results of the teacher’s work are described. The main goal in the
development of the methodology is the formation of a high-quality IT specialist with the ability to approach
the solution to various problems creatively. To achieve this goal, students are offered to work on one original
topic within the framework of laboratory work. As a result, students prepare and present the brand book of
their own company, having gone through all the stages of brand formation. The article presents the results
of a survey of students on the quality of the proposed methodology, and positive and negative aspects of the
teaching of the course are identified. Based on our observations, the methodology can be considered accurate,
because, during the training, students showed the ability to creatively approach tasks, easily master various
graphic editors and successfully combine them in practice.
1 INTRODUCTION
The modern world requires modern approaches in all
areas of human activity. Ukraine and the world need
high-quality specialists in all areas who can quickly,
creatively, and efficiently solve non-standard tasks
that humanity faces. Each future specialist in a dif-
ferent field, especially in the IT field, should always
be ready to solve super-complex tasks, using the abil-
ity to analyze, make quick decisions, and find non-
standard ways out of the current situation.
When preparing IT specialists, one should take
into account the requirements of the labor market, and
the relevance of the studied technologies that employ-
ers need. It is also important to form competencies
a
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5122-8879
b
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6825-4697
c
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3172-5499
d
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6463-370X
that will help a future specialist to make a signifi-
cant contribution to the development of the IT sector
(Vakaliuk et al., 2020, 2021b).
Modern trends in the development of professional
training of future IT specialists include specialization
of education, substantiation of its content, multi-level
nature, the formation of professional competencies
and qualities, the flexibility of curricula, strengthen-
ing the practical orientation, the introduction of in-
formation technology in education, the involvement
of interactive teaching methods, the individualization
of teaching staff with high scientific and pedagogi-
cal potential, capable of productive professional com-
munication in the field of IT education (Varava et al.,
2021).
The development of creativity also contributes to a
better solution to programming problems. The forma-
tion of a specialist as a creative person capable of self-
development, self-education, and innovation is one of
Bolotina, V., Vakaliuk, T., Harbych-Moshora, O. and Kontsedailo, V.
“Branding Theory, Design and Identity” Course Teaching Experience for Modern IT Specialists.
DOI: 10.5220/0012660100003737
Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on History, Theory and Methodology of Learning (ICHTML 2023), pages 191-203
ISBN: 978-989-758-579-1; ISSN: 2976-0836
Proceedings Copyright © 2024 by SCITEPRESS Science and Technology Publications, Lda.
191
the main tasks of higher education. The main focus
of the work of teachers preparing IT specialists is to
create conditions for the creative activity of students,
while it is only necessary to stimulate the desire for
creativity inherent in everyone. The organization of
the educational process with the inclusion of elements
of creative activity will make it possible to educate a
comprehensively developed specialist who will have
an innovative approach to future professional activi-
ties.
The main focus of the work of teachers prepar-
ing IT specialists is to create conditions for the cre-
ative activity of students, while it is only necessary
to stimulate the desire for creativity inherent in ev-
eryone. The organization of the educational process
with the inclusion of elements of creative activity will
make it possible to educate a comprehensively devel-
oped specialist who will have an innovative approach
to future professional activities.
In preparation for the research, an analysis of
curricula and educational programs of students of
IT majors was carried out, in particular, major 122
“Computer Science” Zaporizhzhia Polytechnic Na-
tional University, specialty 121 “Software Engineer-
ing” Kharkiv National University of Radio Electron-
ics, specialty 121 “Software Engineering” Cherkasy
Bohdan Khmelnytskyi National University, specialty
121 “Software Engineering” National Technical Uni-
versity “Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute”, specialty 122
“Computer Science” Lviv Polytechnic National Uni-
versity. The courses in these educational programs,
in most cases, of a technical orientation and do not
involve creative approaches to solving the tasks. In
particular, to a greater extent in all higher education
institutions, subjects related to programming are key,
while graduates of IT specialties are in demand not
only in the market of programmers, but also in the
field of design and computer graphics. As a result,
there is a need to implement new teaching methods
that contribute to the formation of creative and cre-
ative competencies in students of IT specialties.
Creative courses in the training of IT specialists
contribute to the formation of such competencies as
the ability to apply knowledge in practical situations;
the ability to generate new ideas (creativity); ability
to search, process and analyze information from dif-
ferent sources.
At the Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University,
students of the IT industry study the course “Brand-
ing Theory, Design, and Identity” (by the training cur-
riculum specialty 122 Computer Science”). When
studying this course, students often turn to creative
research, develop analytical skills, and independently
go through the entire life cycle of a brand. After com-
pleting the course, students can work in the direction
of design, namely the development of corporate iden-
tity or promotional products.
2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
The problem of high-quality training of IT special-
ists in the current state of digitalization of society is
raised in many scientific papers. For the formation
of different competencies in the professional training
of IT specialists, scientists consider different method-
ologies.
Petrenko et al. (2020) describes the use of peda-
gogical crowd technologies in the professional train-
ing of future information technology specialists and
also analyzes the impact of using mobile devices and
online services when learning foreign languages. The
authors have developed an experimental conceptual
model for the use of pedagogical crowd technologies
(Petrenko et al., 2020). The article states that train-
ing using crowd technologies implies a general set of
pedagogical conditions aimed at developing the nec-
essary competencies for the professional activities of
IT specialists in the future. The authors conducted
an experiment, which proved the feasibility of using
modern online services at all stages of the educational
process when formulating a goal, learning new mate-
rial, and controlling knowledge. It is also possible
to simultaneously use different types of a crowd
crowd teaching, and crowd assessment both in a com-
plex and each type separately. The effectiveness of
the introduction of the conceptual use of pedagogical
crowd-technologies is indicative: the level of moti-
vation has increased and the cognitive interest of stu-
dents and their activity in the classroom has increased,
work in groups became coordinated, and relationships
became trusting (Petrenko et al., 2020).
The works of Striuk et al. describes the experi-
ence of the Department of Simulation Software Engi-
neering of the Kryvyi Rih National University in solv-
ing the problems of training IT specialists in modern
conditions, and the author presents the main trends
and technologies that are advanced for the formation
of well-trained specialists who become competitive
in the market. Students take part in projects and re-
ceive high-quality training that allows them to en-
ter the working environment of the IT market with
a formed set of knowledge and skills necessary for a
successful start of their career in IT companies (Striuk
and Semerikov, 2019, 2022; Striuk et al., 2022).
To determine the main approaches and teaching
methods for IT specialists, it is important to iden-
tify the most common problems that future special-
ICHTML 2023 - International Conference on History, Theory and Methodology of Learning
192
ists face during the development of the course. The
works by Vakaliuk et al. describes the problems of
professional training of future IT specialists in the ed-
ucational and information environment of a technical
university. The authors notes that the processes that
are constantly changing the education system and ap-
proach to learning and teaching significantly affect
the formation of the competencies of future special-
ists. The authors refers to such problems as the rapid
updating of knowledge. The main task that is set for
higher education institutions in the training of IT spe-
cialists is to quickly adapt to dynamically changing
conditions. Students are required to independently
acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for suc-
cessful work, apply them in practice to solve various
problems; independently, critically think, be able to
see the problems that arise in reality, and look for ra-
tional ways to solve them using modern technologies;
work efficiently with information to solve the tasks;
be able to work in teams that bring together specialists
from different fields of knowledge (Vakaliuk, 2021;
Vakaliuk et al., 2021a, 2023).
To constantly improve the methods of training IT
specialists, various areas of education should be in-
troduced. The book of Duran et al. (2015) reports
the results of a three-year research program funded by
the National Science Foundation which targeted stu-
dents and teachers from four Detroit high schools in
order for them to learn, experience, and use IT within
the context of STEM (IT/STEM), and explore 21st
century career and educational pathways. The book
discusses the accomplishment of these goals through
the creation of a Community of Designers an en-
vironment in which high school students and teach-
ers, undergraduate/graduate student assistants, and
STEM area faculty and industry experts worked to-
gether as a cohesive team. The program created four
project-based design teams, one for each STEM area.
Each team had access to two year-round IT/STEM en-
richment experiences to create high-quality learning
projects, strategies, and curriculum models. These
strategies were applied in after school, weekend, and
summer settings through hands-on, inquiry-based ac-
tivities with a strong emphasis on non-traditional ap-
proaches to learning and understanding.
Szymkowiak et al. (2021) describes the impor-
tance of using modern information technologies in
the preparation of students in different areas. The au-
thors point out that the Internet represents an impor-
tant place as a “source of expansion of horizons”.
In preparing high-quality future specialists, a fun-
damental principle is an accessible education for ev-
eryone. As noted Haleem et al. (2022), one of the fun-
damental components of the UN sustainable develop-
ment agenda until 2030 is quality education. It aims
to provide inclusive and equitable quality education
for all. Information technology has become an im-
portant tool for achieving this goal. The study exam-
ines questions aimed at determining the importance of
introducing information technologies into the educa-
tional process, and what changes can be achieved as a
result.
The most important indicator of the quality of the
university is the rate of employment of graduates after
graduation from higher education. For graduates to
be ready for employment in the company, the learn-
ing process must go beyond the formation of skills
and the transfer of knowledge, and the existing com-
petencies must meet the requirements of the market.
Albina and Sumagaysay (2020) explores the employ-
ment of graduates of information technology educa-
tion at a public university in the Philippines.
Weng et al. (2022) explores the issue of the for-
mation of creativity and entrepreneurship of students
through real education based on the creation of prob-
lems. The study identified how real-world problem
tasks contributed to student creativity in the dimen-
sions of novelty, usefulness, aesthetics, authenticity,
and entrepreneurship in the areas of ideas and op-
portunities, resources, and activities throughout the
learning stages. The development of creativity is an
important aspect of the education of students of vari-
ous specialties, including technical ones.
Higher education institutions work closely with
specialized companies interested in high-quality per-
sonnel university graduates. There is a close rela-
tionship between the software development industry
and IT education. Cico et al. (2021) explores the main
trends in software engineering in the academic envi-
ronment. In the course of the study, the authors notes
that trends such as software adoption, usability, and
global software engineering are relatively small in the
academic community, and also that there are certain
differences between the field of software engineering
development and the training of IT specialists.
However, teaching creative courses to IT profes-
sionals has not yet been studied, and therefore re-
quires attention.
The purpose of the article is to describe the au-
thor’s methodology for teaching the course “Branding
Theory, Design, and Identity” and to study its feasi-
bility in the training of modern IT specialists.
3 METHODS
We used the following methods to conduct the re-
search:
“Branding Theory, Design and Identity” Course Teaching Experience for Modern IT Specialists
193
A systematic method and explanation for describ-
ing the methodology of teaching the course “The-
ory of Branding, Design and Identity”.
Visual methods for a visual demonstration of the
results of students’ work on assigned tasks within
the framework of laboratory work and display of
the results of the use of project presentation tools.
Survey, to conduct a questionnaire to determine
the expediency of the implemented methodology
for teaching the course “Theory of Branding, De-
sign and Identity”.
4 RESULTS
When preparing IT specialists, an important aspect is
the development of the creative skills of future spe-
cialists. The labor market in the field of information
technology is constantly changing, as are the criteria
for selecting employees.
As part of the course “Branding Theory, Design
and Identity”, the main goal is to prepare high-quality
specialists in the direction of developing a corporate
identity and developing the creative abilities of spe-
cialists studying technical specialties.
The purpose of the course is to familiarize stu-
dents with the basic concepts and established units
of corporate identity development, branding, and cor-
porate identity, the practical use of graphic editors
to create an identity; development of a brand book,
familiarization with the main stages of the presenta-
tion of the project, and working with the customer; to
get acquainted with the concept of “corporate style”,
“guideline”, “brand”, and “naming”.
After completing the course, students will be able
to demonstrate real corporate identity development
solutions and learn to analyze the elements and com-
ponents of corporate identity. In addition, the im-
plementation of all laboratory work implies the de-
velopment of a full cycle of corporate identity. In
the theoretical blocks of the course, students get ac-
quainted with the main stages of working with a cus-
tomer, the theory of presentation, and the defense of
their project.
Here is an indicative list of topics for studying this
course:
1. Introduction. The concept of branding, corporate
identity, and corporate style. Basic concepts of
branding. Brand building. The concept of iden-
tity. Features of the use of corporate identity. Ele-
ments of the corporate identity of the company.
2. Types of computer graphics. Work with vector
graphics. Resources for creating your own corpo-
rate identity. Work with color and text in Adobe
Illustrator. Work with primitives.
3. Logo. Corporate style constants. Graphic image.
History of logos. Symbolism in the brand name.
Stages of creating a logo. Types of logos. Classi-
fication and semantic overload of corporate sym-
bols.
4. Logo. Formation of a palette of corporate colors
and fonts. Selection of font pairs in the logo. Psy-
chology of color perception. The semantic load of
color in the system of corporate identity.
5. Corporate business documentation. Design rules.
Development of business documentation, and its
role in the corporate identity system. Business
cards as a means of communication. Letterhead
and business identification. Corporate envelopes
and folders.
6. Work with raster graphics. Mockup. How to cre-
ate a mockup. Processing existing presentation
templates through raster graphics editors.
7. Rules for the design of outdoor advertising. Types
of outdoor advertising. Stages of development.
Formation of an advertising offer. The effective-
ness of advertising media.
8. Combination of raster and vector graphics.
Graphic techniques in advertising. Combination
of vector and raster graphics in design layouts.
Work with vector graphics in a raster graphics ed-
itor. Creation of advertising compositions.
9. Corporate website and advertising on the Internet.
Types of corporate websites. Stages of creation.
Creation of a corporate blog using online design-
ers. Advertising on websites and the Internet.
10. Composition and visual hierarchy in web design.
Rules for constructing a visual composition. Prin-
ciples of building web page architecture. Selec-
tion of fonts and colors for the website.
11. Point of sale. POS types. Ways to influence the
buyer. Printed advertising products.
12. Brand book development, design rules. Types of
brand books. Basic design rules. Image and visual
component. The guideline, logo book.
13. Work with the customer. Principles of project pre-
sentation.
14. Corporate periodicals. Advertising in the media
space. Types of corporate periodicals. Types of
media advertising, principles of creation.
When studying the first topic, students get ac-
quainted with the concept of branding and corporate
identity. When entering the course, special attention
ICHTML 2023 - International Conference on History, Theory and Methodology of Learning
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is paid to the review of existing brands, the study of
the history of the creation of their corporate identity,
and changes in the process of rebranding. For a more
detailed immersion in the concept of branding and
consolidation of the studied stages, students need to
prepare a presentation using free software on the topic
“Corporate Identity of a World Famous Brand”. As a
result of completing the task, students form the im-
age of the brand and understand the approaches to its
creation.
The unique approach to performing laboratory
work in this course is that each student works on his
topic throughout the course, which provides an in-
dividual approach to completing tasks. In the first
lesson, students are invited to choose their topic and
develop terms of reference for working on a brand
book on the chosen topic. The theme can be any non-
existent company or one that was created recently and
does not have its own corporate identity.
Analyzing the results of students after studying
the first topic, one should pay attention to the fact that
at this stage of mastering the course, when preparing
a presentation about one of the well-known brands,
students learn to make a creative search, analyze the
existing corporate identity, separate its main compo-
nents and present it. Another important skill to be
formed is the ability to set clear goals and require-
ments for your future project in the form of a technical
assignment.
The next stage in the work of students is to gain
skills in working with vector graphics, which be-
comes the basis for creating corporate identity con-
stants. To consolidate the acquired skills, students
create illustrations using a vector graphics editor.
Also, one of the tasks of the next topic is to prepare
background images for the upcoming presentation on
the previously selected topic.
The result of the work is a set of vector images
created using a vector graphics editor. Tasks of this
type allow you to learn new tools that will be useful
in future work. When creating illustrations, students
learn to choose shades and build a composition. Some
of the students of the course, as practice shows, de-
part from the proposed samples and create new or im-
proved existing illustrations, which indicates the man-
ifestation of creativity and independence in work.
The basis of the entire course is the third theme.
It is built in such a way that after completing all the
tasks, students receive the basic elements of corporate
identity, based on which the entire corporate identity
is raised.
The first task of this theme is to create a mood
board as a means of conveying mood and design style
figure 1. The next important stage in the work of stu-
dents is the study of a competitive market in their
chosen field. By doing research, you can ensure a
high-quality and unique design, while avoiding pla-
giarism in the name and stylistic features. After con-
ducting preparatory studies, students move on to the
most important stage in the development of a corpo-
rate identity – a logo. To begin with, sketches are de-
veloped based on reference projects selected by stu-
dents. From the sketches, one version of the logo is
selected, which is necessarily finalized and presented.
In the technical part of the corporate identity con-
stants section, an important point is the technical re-
quirements for using the logo in all corporate-style
media. Students prepare requirements for the mini-
mum distance between the logo and stylistic elements
in layouts, and provide for the design of unacceptable
options for using the logo, namely, changing colors,
deleting existing or adding new graphic objects, dis-
proportionate transformation, etc. (figure 2).
During the study of this topic, students form a
palette of corporate colors with a description of the
stylistic load and select font pairs, indicating their
combination and use in advertising, souvenirs, and
branded business documentation.
When studying this topic, again, as experience
shows, students present a whole range of develop-
ments on their topic, which involves several stages.
To begin with, market research, competitors, and the
uniqueness of the product or service are presented.
At the same time, the concept of work is based on
a thorough study of the topic and the history of the
product. Most of the student’s present hand-drawn
logo sketches in their work, indicating that the stu-
dents were keen to develop a truly own and unique
logo. When selecting colors, students use specialized
resources such as Adobe Color (Adobe, 2023), as well
as build a color palette based on theoretical material
on the topic of the lecture “Color Theory”. As part of
this work, students selected font pairs, as a result of
which a clear distribution of typefaces for use in the
logo and use in business documentation was demon-
strated.
After the development and technical description
of corporate identity constants, students proceed to
the design of business documentation (figure 3). In
preparation for this stage, students learn how to cor-
rectly present their work using a mockup. A mockup
is a special layout, an image of a real object, on which
a design element is superimposed: a logo, a cover, a
screenshot, and so on. Mockups allow you to imme-
diately see how the object will look in reality.
It is important to note that students are encouraged
to use resources with stock raster and vector images
throughout their study of the “Branding Theory, De-
“Branding Theory, Design and Identity” Course Teaching Experience for Modern IT Specialists
195
Figure 1: Mood board example.
sign and Identity” course to use their resources in their
designs. Namely, Unsplash (unsplash.com, 2023)
is a stock of bitmap files, Pixabay (pixabay.com,
2023) is a storage of bitmap graphics, and Freepick
(freepik.com, 2023) is a stock for searching source
files of vector and bitmap graphics. Students also
use well-known portfolio sites to keep track of cur-
rent corporate identity design trends.
The next step in creating the identity of the se-
lected company, students to develop corporate busi-
ness documentation. The task consists of design-
ing business cards, and letterhead, and designing en-
velopes for correspondence. A business card is cre-
ated, at the choice of the student, personal or general
for the company. The letterhead is submitted for veri-
fication in two versions – the main and the black-and-
white version. Branded envelopes are presented in C6
and Euro formats. When developing corporate busi-
ness documentation, students adhere to the corporate
style, colors, and fonts selected earlier. When pre-
senting all elements, mockups are used, the style of
which reflects the mood of the company.
Expanding the set of corporate identity elements,
students move on to creating layouts for advertising
media billboards, and signboards (figure 4). When
getting acquainted with the topic of External adver-
tising, an important step is to get acquainted with
the principles of creating a unique advertising offer,
the principles of advertising design, and matching the
layout to the corporate style. The outdoor advertis-
ing media provided for creation clearly show the rules
for using corporate identity in advertising. During the
presentation of layouts, students test for compliance
with the design and localization of the advertising me-
dia site.
Advertising design is a new direction for students.
When developing advertising layouts, each of the stu-
dents analyzes the existing, high-quality, and popular
advertising forms their advertising offers and presents
them on the appropriate sites. The results of the work,
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196
Figure 2: Logo red lines example.
as experience shows, are very diverse in terms of the
creative potential of each of the students and their
skills as graphic editors.
Another important direction in the corporate style
of the company is the dissemination of information
about the brand on the Internet. Online advertising
occupies an important place in brand promotion, and
the design of a corporate website is an indispensable
condition for the formation of the integrity of corpo-
rate identity. Students, using the software, make out
the main page of the corporate website. One of the
types of corporate web resources is selected by the
theme. When designing the main page of the site,
students must follow the rules of their own corporate
identity and corporate style, use corporate colors and
fonts, displaying the company’s theme in the smallest
“Branding Theory, Design and Identity” Course Teaching Experience for Modern IT Specialists
197
Figure 3: Documentation example.
Figure 4: Billboard example.
details of web design. The next task is to develop ban-
ners for advertising on the Internet. In banners, stu-
dents form three different promotional offers to pro-
mote the company on web pages and social networks.
ICHTML 2023 - International Conference on History, Theory and Methodology of Learning
198
The result of the work is the presentation of the cor-
porate website design and a set of three banners for
advertising on the Internet.
When performing this work, the adaptability of
students in the use of various software tools and web
resources is observed. Students are encouraged to use
available website builders and online editors to cre-
ate interface prototypes. At the same time, students
also demonstrate how the corporate identity of the
company works on web resources of various types,
which is an important step in the development of cor-
porate identity because at present the main promotion
of companies occurs through the Internet.
The final stage is the development of a line of sou-
venirs, a set of packaging, and the development of a
design for branded clothing for employees (figure 5).
The elements of souvenir products for each student
may differ, depending on the correspondence between
the theme of the project and souvenir products. Sou-
venirs, branded packaging, and clothing are designed
by students by their own corporate identity.
When demonstrating souvenirs, packaging, and
branded clothing, students use mockup files. The
main requirement was that students use a mockup of
the same style, fit their subject, and the general con-
cept of corporate identity.
The final work of the course “Branding Theory,
Design and Identity” is the formation of a company’s
brand book on the chosen topic, on which students
worked individually during the course. Valid project
presentation options are a printed version, an elec-
tronic version in PDF, or a brand book in the form
of a website. All parts of the corporate identity are
presented as file mockups. In the working version
of the brand book, students include the following
sections: about the company; logo; corporate col-
ors; corporate fonts; business documentation (busi-
ness card, letterhead, envelope); outdoor advertis-
ing (billboard, signboard); souvenir products (at least
three units); branded packaging (at least three units);
branded clothing.
When submitting the final project, each student
will present his work on all the requirements for the
presentation of projects in IT companies (see fig-
ure 6). As part of the lectures, students are provided
with material for working with the customer, the ba-
sics of creating technical specifications, and briefing.
To determine the appropriateness of the teaching
methodology for this course, we analyzed two final
works of students in the course “Branding Theory,
Design and Identity”. Each student studied full-time
and completed a full course of lecture material and
laboratory work. As a result, the company’s brand
book on a unique theme was submitted for review.
The first work for analysis was the work on the
topic “Beast Gym Sports Club”. “Beast Gym” a
network of gyms for people mainly from 12 years
old of any category, interested in maintaining phys-
ical health, improving health, and changing lifestyles.
The main goal is to provide training services, spread
the ideas of a healthy lifestyle, and help achieve sports
goals (figure 7).
The chosen stylistic design of the brand book is
fully consistent with the chosen theme. The logo as a
corporate identity constant is completely accurate and
reflects the style and character of the institution. The
symbol in the logo consists of the image of a lion and
a dumbbell, which he holds in his teeth.
The technical description of the use of corporate
identity constants is complete, there are examples
of business documentation, outdoor advertising, sou-
venirs, branded packaging, and clothing.
The following work is done in a classic, minimal-
ist style. The theme of the work is “Black Rabbit Bar-
bershop Network” (figure 8).
All requirements have been met. It should be
noted that the student completed a complete descrip-
tion of the history of brand creation, which is an im-
portant step in the formation of corporate identity and
corporate style. The brand book contains all the re-
quired sections, and the results of the work are pre-
sented in the form of a mockup.
It should be noted that the reviewed works were
completed in compliance with all requirements, tak-
ing into account the theoretical material of the lec-
tures. However, each of the works is unique in its
theme, style, and technical description, which in-
dicates that when developing brand books, students
used a creative approach to work, laboratory work
was able to form the ability to generate new ideas,
engage in creative search and bring ideas to life.
5 DISCUSSION
To determine the feasibility of the introduced method-
ology for teaching the course “Branding Theory, De-
sign and Identity”, an anonymous survey of students
trained according to this methodology was conducted.
Applicants for higher education must answer the fol-
lowing questions:
1. Do the course assignments match the lecture ma-
terials and laboratory assignments?
2. Do the topics fit the learning objectives of the
course?
3. Select the topics that you think are 100% neces-
sary.
“Branding Theory, Design and Identity” Course Teaching Experience for Modern IT Specialists
199
Figure 5: Branded clothing example.
Figure 6: Business document presentation example.
4. Select topics to remove.
5. Write down what topics you think could be cov-
ered in this course.
6. How interesting was the course for you.
7. What do you remember most about your studies?
40 second-year students of specialty 122 “Com-
puter Science” were involved in the survey. Participa-
tion in the survey was voluntary and anonymous.
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200
Figure 7: “Beast Gym” brand book cover.
Figure 8: “Black Rabbit” brand book cover.
After working through the results of the survey,
it was found that students were happy to study this
course, and all the topics proposed for study are fully
consistent with the goals of the course. Since the stu-
dents who participated in the survey study were only
in the 2nd year, everyone answered the same ques-
tions for 3, 4, and 5 questions (that all topics are
needed for studying, nothing needs to be added and
taken away).
The results of the student survey indicate that it
is difficult for students to adapt quickly to a creative
environment. Part of the students have difficulties at
“Branding Theory, Design and Identity” Course Teaching Experience for Modern IT Specialists
201
the stage of forming the topic of the work. This is due
to insufficient immersion in corporate identity trends
of companies of different directions and locations.
Since the beginning of work on the graphic com-
ponent of the brand is the creation of a logo, students
feel a lack of material for forming the concept and
idea of the brand. Formation of the brand’s mission
and philosophy is an important stage in the develop-
ment of corporate identity.
As a solution to this problem, within laboratory
work, which precedes the creation of the logo, stu-
dents are offered to delve into the topic of their
choice:
1. Analyze the relevance of the product or services.
2. Research the competitive market locally.
3. To identify the relevance of the products or ser-
vices offered by them among others on the mar-
ket.
4. Form the target audience and develop user por-
traits.
5. Describe the philosophy of the brand and form a
mission.
The next problem that students face is the presen-
tation of work. After all, the success of the project
as a whole depends on the presentation of the materi-
als. Most students lack oral presentation skills and use
outdated resources to present visual materials. The
solution to this problem is to provide students with
electronic resources of collections of mockups that
they can use in their works.
Regarding what was most memorable when study-
ing this course, the students indicated that it was
the opportunity to use any means (there was no link
to specific means, which the students liked), the
teacher’s creative approach to tasks, and, accordingly,
students. implementation of the tasks.
Summing up and taking into account the inter-
views of students conducted during the defense of fi-
nal works, the main advantages and disadvantages of
the proposed methodology were identified. Among
the disadvantages are:
a complex adaptation of technical students in a
completely creative environment;
insufficient amount of lecture material for perfect
mastery of graphic editors.
Benefits include:
improving the skill of oral presentations;
development of creative thinking;
elaboration of quite individual thinking;
application of acquired skills in vocational educa-
tion.
6 CONCLUSIONS
The introduction of creative courses into the curricula
of students studying technical specialties is an inte-
gral part of the formation of a high-quality IT spe-
cialist. When developing the teaching methodology
“Branding Theory, Design, and Identity”, the main re-
quirement was to ensure the formation of the ability to
generate new ideas (creativity) and teach students to
independently search, process, and analyze informa-
tion from various sources. As external resources, stu-
dents are offered services for publishing the work of
designers, including corporate identity design. Dur-
ing the laboratory work, students have the opportunity
to work on a topic of interest to them, developing a de-
sign for that area of activity that interests them, which
as a result increases students’ motivation to perform
laboratory work.
As a result of taking the course “Branding Theory,
Design and Identity”, students learned creative search
and analysis, learned the stages of brand formation.
Each of the course participants developed their own
corporate identity and prepared a working version of
the brand book by the evaluation criteria. The course
methodology allows students to develop such compe-
tencies as the ability to apply knowledge in practical
situations, the ability to generate new ideas (creativ-
ity), and the ability to search, process, and analyze
information from different sources. During the train-
ing, students showed the ability to creatively approach
tasks, easily master different graphic editors and suc-
cessfully combine them in practice.
During the implementation of this methodology,
we discovered some difficulties that students face dur-
ing their studies, namely the problem of rapid im-
mersion in the creative space, the insufficient study
of graphic editors, and a noticeable lack of material
for forming the concept and idea of a brand. Each of
these problems will be worked out in detail by the au-
thors in the future, which will allow us to expand the
course by adding new theoretical material and some
practical tasks.
The prospects for further research include the se-
lection of criteria and indicators for the selection of
digital learning tools for studying this course, as well
as to carry out the appropriate expert selection.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was carried out thanks to the named schol-
arship of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for young
scientists – doctors of sciences for the year 2022.
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202
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